New Delhi July 11 (IANS) The free food supplied by religious institutions does not attract any Goods and Services Tax but the inputs required to make it including sugar vegetable oil and ghee are subject to GST the government said on Tuesday.
"There are media reports suggesting that GST applies on free food supplied in anna kshetras run by religious institutions. This is completely untrue. No GST is applicable on such food supplied free " the Finance Ministry said here in a statement.
"Further prasadam supplied by religious places like temples mosques churches gurudwaras and dargahs attracts nil Central GST and State GST or Integrated GST as the case may be " it said.
However some of the inputs and input services required for making prasadam would be subject to GST it noted saying these include sugar vegetable edible oils ghee butter and service for transportation of these goods.
"Most of these inputs or input services have multiple uses. Under GST regime it is difficult to prescribe a separate rate of tax for sugar when supplied for a particular purpose " it said.
"Further GST being a multi-stage tax end use based exemptions or concessions are difficult to administer. Therefore GST does not envisage end use based exemptions. It would therefore not be desirable to provide end use based exemption for inputs or input services for making prasadam or food for free distribution by religious institutions " it added.
--IANS
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